The case Syntax is not correct , have a look here http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-conditional.html
Furthermore; I think, this will not ensure the order of root 3, root 4 and root 5 as well as scene1,...
Regards
On Monday, February 3, 2014 7:55 PM, Susan Cassidy <susan.cassidy@decisionsciencescorp.com> wrote:
I have a column that contains items like
'absolute root'
'root 3'
'root 4'
'root 5'
'scene 1'
'scene 2'
'scene 3'
and I would like them to sort in that order.
I tried: select sti.description, sc.description from scene_thing_instances sti join scenes sc on sti.scene_id = sc.scene_id order by CASE sc.description when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) then 1 when (sc.description ilike 'root%') then 2 else 3 END;
I was starting with this, and was going to add perhaps another case statement.
But it gives me:
ERROR: operator does not exist: text = boolean LINE 3: when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) th... ^ HINT: No operator matches the given name and argument type(s). You might need to add explicit type casts.
I don't understand this because description is a text column, not boolean, and certainly 'absolute root'::text is a text string.
